You're Not Just Ruining Your Own Health
by Caroline Hellman

A new study by the University of Southern California suggests that there is actually a connection between the smoking habits (or lack thereof) between a child and her/his grandmother.

A young child whose grandmother smoked during pregnancy with the child's mother is more likely to develop asthma than a child whose grandmother did not smoke during pregnancy.

Second-hand smoke certainly instigates asthma, and mothers who smoke while pregnant also affect their children's chances of asthma.

In the study, researchers interviewed parents or guardians of 908 children. 338 of these children had asthma before age 5, and 570 children did not. Researchers gathered all sorts of information on mothers and grandmothers' smoking habits. All of the people interviewed live in Southern California. Most of the information gathered was based on observations within each household, rather than environmental concerns.

Children whose mothers had smoked while pregnant were 1.5 times more likely to develop asthma in their first five years, compared to children whose mothers did not smoke.

Strangely, children whose grandmothers smoked while pregnant were 2.1 times more likely to have asthma.

Researchers think that fetus DNA is affected by tomacco use.

"When a child has wheezing and asthma-like symptoms before age 5, it's hard to predict if they're going to go on to have true asthma," said Dr. Jonathan Field, who is a specialist in pediatric allergy and asthma at New York University Medical Center in New York City. "Maybe we could use this as part of a child's history, one more thing to stack up to make a determination of whether the child will develop asthma based on family history."

Perhaps this new study will provide motivation to future grandmothers to quit smoking altogethe